React Router Prework.md

React Router Prework

This gist contains a short assignment I'd like everyone to complete before our formal lesson. The prework involves reading some of the React Router documentation, and will allow us to keep the lesson more hands on.

Instructions

1. Fork this gist
2. On your own copy, go through the listed readings and answer associated questions
3. Comment a link to your forked copy on the original gist

Questions / Readings

Router Overview

React Router is a library that allows us to make our single page React applications mimic the behavior of multipage apps. It provides the ability to use browser history, allowing users to navigate with forward / back buttons and bookmark links to specific views of the app. Most modern sites use some form of routing. React Router exposes this functionality through a series of components. Let's start by looking at the overall structure of an app using router:

1. Take a look at the quick start page of the React Router docs. Take note of the syntax and organization of the page. No worries if this looks unclear right now! (nothing to answer here)

2. What package do we need to install to use React Router?
   react-router-dom

Router Components

React Router provides a series of helpful components that allow our apps to use routing. These can be split into roughly 3 categories:

• Routers
• Route Matcher
• Route Changers

Routers

Any code that uses a React-Router-provided component must be wrapped in a router component. There are lots of router components we can use, but we'll focus on one in particular. Let's look into the docs to learn more.

3. What is a <BrowserRouter />?
   A BrowserRouter is router component that stores a URL and communicates with the server.

4. Why would we use <BrowserRouter /> in our apps?
   It keeps UI in sync with the URL. Using routers enable us to build a single-page web application without the page refreshing as the user navigates. This makes it a more seamless user experience as preventing the page refresh means there's no blank page when page is refreshing.

Route Matchers

5. What does the <Route /> component do?
   It's a route matching component that stores a path (url). It will render some UI if its path matches the current URL.

6. How does the <Route /> component check whether it should render something?
   It will render if it matches the current URL.

7. What does the <Switch /> component do?
   It searches through its children elements to find one whose path matches the current URL.

8. How does it decide what to render?
   It will render the first child (or ) that matches the location,

Route Changers

9. What does the <Link /> component do? How does a user interact with it?
   It provides accessible navigation around the application. It appears as a link on the app that the user can click/select.

10. What does the <NavLink /> component do? How does a user interact with it?
    It's a version of that can style itself as “active” when its to prop matches the current location. It appears as a link on the app that the user can click/select.

11. What does the <Redirect /> component do?
    It forces navigation. When a renders, it will navigate using its to prop.